Sales Pros – How are your Writing Skills?

I have been reviewing resumes recently for sales positions at one of my clients and I cannot believe how poorly written some of them are. About a third of the resumes contain glaring and repeated spelling and grammatical mistakes.

The two most extreme examples of poorly written resumes went far beyond pure mistakes in English:

Example 1: I received a resume that was a template where the candidate had not completed the customization. So it literally said “I feel I am a good fit for [fill in the job]” (and the words “fill in the job” were actually in the resume), then it went on to say “because of my skills in [fill in the skills]”

Example 2: I received a resume that had come from LinkedIn so I went to the candidates LinkedIn profile. In the person’s profile a found the candidate had only one endorsement (testimonial). And the testimonial read “John, I do not remember you, so how can I give you a testimonial”

I am a pretty forgiving person but how in good conscience could I proceed with interviewing these people? As a Sales VP I cannot escape the vision of these individuals sending out emails and marketing materials to my prospects!

So sales people, when you are (a) applying for a job or (b) sending out communication to your prospects and clients, please make sure that your correspondence does not contain any glaring errors in content, logic, grammar or spelling.

Sales people do not have to be the “Bard” of their company but they do need to get the basics of communication right!